Christian Dior Pre-Fall 2012 Collection

Bill Gaytten shocked the fashion sphere last Fall when his SS12 ready-to-wear collecion for Christian Dior turned out to not be the dreadful tripe everyone had been expecting it to be. In fact, many people liked it, myself included. Pre-Fall finds Gaytten at his best yet, and his quirks and penchants, which were blown up and employed to hyperbolic measure for his last Fall’s Couture showing, have persisted, but not without a good deal of harnessing. Those touches were most apparent in a piebald lattice knit worn with a simple black skirt. The man loves black and white combinations, but even moreso, he lives for geometry (Follow his solo evolution at the house thus far and you will see).

The attempt here seems to be no-fuss Parisienne elegance, but injected with a touch of modernity that Galliano couldn’t seem to wrangle for himself. Galliano, admittedly, had been at a stand-still with Dior. Romance was his forte, but he could hardly blow the dust off such idealistic pursuits. Gaytten on the other hand is at least attempting to play with new fabrications, as evidenced by a fur-collared trench imbued in an oily, metallic organza. Luckily, he tried his luck with silhouette here too. A soft pink cocktail dress with a skirt that doesn’t know if it’s an A-line or a corolla was youthful and sexy, the way Valentino has reexercised its name through Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri. No one has anything bad to say about them. Perhaps, in time, Gaytten might be so lucky.